Finally, baseball is getting good news about its effort to increase youth participation in the sport.
Stunning news, really.
Baseball and softball combined to rank as the most participated team sport in 2016, according to the annual report by the Sports & Fitness Industry Association, a leader in sports participation research.
Equally important from baseball’s perspective, the sport showed growth in both casual and core participation over one-, three- and five-year periods at a time when the trends in other team sports are less encouraging, said Tom Cove, the president and CEO of SFIA.
The findings in SFIA’s participation report will be presented to the major-league owners during their quarterly meetings Thursday in New York.